Campfire Ghost Stories, by JoAnne Christensen
by FromtheDark
Summary: A typed copy of Jo-Anne Christensen's works, for anyone who needs a story for a fic or an escape from bordom ^-^ Enjoy
1. Disclaimer

Disclaimer: These are not my own works, but those of Jo-Anne Christensen and perhaps others that I come across ^-^  
  
Rydia: This is pretty much for anyone who needs a ghost story for a fic, or simply enjoys ghost stories, such as D ^-^  
  
Oscen: If you have any that you'd like added, then simply email us at either FromtheDark@dangerous-minds.com or dragonlance_3001@hotmail.com  
  
Phoenix: Not like anyone would.  
  
Rydia: Negative attitude man!  
  
Phoenix: It's true.  
  
Rydia: Never the less..  
  
Oscen: I actually agree with Rydia  
  
D: When don't you agree with Rydia?  
  
Phoenix: -snicker- Good one D  
  
D: I know, I know.   
  
Rydia: -growl-  
  
Oscen: -growl-  
  
Phoenix: ^-^  
  
D: Anyways! Enjoy!  
  
Campfire Ghost Stories   
  
By Jo-Anne Christensen  
  
Ten Tips for Storytellers:  
  
1. Select an appropriate story for the audience. The younger your listeners, the shorter and simpler the tale should be. Obviously, very young children don't need to hear anything really frightening, but they often love fairytale-style stories witha few mildly spooky elements  
  
2. Atmosphere is important. Even if you don't have a campfire, a thunderstorm or a power outage conveniently at hand, you can do some things to enhance the experience. Dim the lights and turn off the telephone. Use candles. Allow sufficient time for the event and insist upon respectful silence from your audience.  
  
3. Be comfortably familiar with your material. Even if you're reading from a book, know the story well. That will allow you to look up frequently to make eye contact with your listeners and will give you more freedom to be expressive and theatrical.  
  
4. Find an exciting way to open the story and capture your listeners' attention  
  
5. Use your voice, and your body, expressively. Try to incorporate any gestures that might be appropriate and would add a sense of drama.  
  
6. Experiment with timing. The pace at which you read, or speak, should change with the level of action in the story. Varying the speed and tone of your voice will also help you to maintain your listeners' attention  
  
7. When telling a story, you can create atmosphere through vivid descriptions, but try to avoid being long-winded. It's your job to make the story move; you want to advance the plot at a steady pace.  
  
8. When the story is a scary one, focus on the mystery and suspence, not on the gore and potentially repulsive elements.  
  
9. Don't draw the story out past its natural conclusin. A good story requires a good ending. Also, keeping a strong ending in mind, don't be afraid of the moment of silence that will follow your story. Don't be tempted to fill it with an apologetic "anyways..." or some other chatter. Give your audience time to absorb the story and show their appreciation.  
  
10. Relax. Try to remember that your audience is receptive-They want to enjoy what you're about to share with them. It may also help the remember that, even if you're not accustomed to speaking to a group, you probably are an experienced storyteller. Pretend that you're talking to a friend and enjoy yourself.  
  
D: Anyways, a brief thing to letcha know how this is going to work. The book is seperated into sections, three to be exact. I'll be starting with Part I: Stories Told by Firelight. After this, I may create another story for the next section, or just continue on. Lemme know what you want. If you care. Hopefully I'll be able to type up one of the stories and upload them every day, maybe more than one a day.  
  
Phoenix: That's hopefully. But if you're jus' bored, then I highly suggest going out and buying some ghost story books.  
  
Rydia: This book, Campfire Ghost Stories, is by Jo-Anne Christensen, and is pretty much fictional.   
  
Oscen: There are books that are non-fiction, and very interesting. A series that comes to mind is by -rumages for book-   
  
Phoenix: -puts on Elevator Music-  
  
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Oscen: FOUND THEM!  
  
Rydia: Yay!  
  
D&Phoenix: Finally --;  
  
Oscen: -sticks out tongue- Anyways, the books are written by Barbara Smith, and they're very good.   
  
Rydia: Some that we have are Ghost Stories of Hollywood ^-^  
  
Oscen: Ghost Stories of the Rocky Mountains  
  
Rydia: Ghost Stories and Myths of British Columbia  
  
Oscen: Even More Ghost Stories of Alberta.  
  
Phoenix: -steals book- Really?  
  
Oscen: -snarl-  
  
Rydia: Do you mind?  
  
Phoenix: Mind? Of course not!  
  
D: -snicker- Again, enjoy! And tell me whatcha think!  
  
Phoenix: If you can...  
  
Rydia&Oscen: -thwack-  
  
Phoenix: X.x;;  
  
D: -cackle- 


	2. Stories Told By Firelight

Campfire Ghost Stories  
  
by Jo-Anne Christensen  
  
Stories Told by Firelight:  
  
Certain tales are meant to be told late at night, under the stars and in the light of a crackling fire. They are the legends of our time, the urban mythology, or the stories most of us have heard at one time or another.  
  
The teller usually swears that the tale is true, and the listener is willing to believe. That is the magic that is created when there is a story told by firelight...  
  
The Hitchhiker  
  
The Hook  
  
Children of the Tracks  
  
The Warning  
  
Bloody Mary  
  
The Message  
  
Skinned Tom  
  
The Screaming Bridge  
  
The Scratching  
  
The Weeping Woman  
  
A Grave Mistake  
  
The Helpful Stranger  
  
The Telephantom 


	3. The Hitchhiker

Campfire Ghost Stories  
  
by Jo-Anne Christensen  
  
Stories Told By Firelight  
  
The Hitchhiker  
  
Donald Whaley was in sales-the kind of sales that required driving all over the countryside, from small town to smaller town, putting many miles on his old sedan with its trunk full of samples and order forms. He did most of his business during the day, talking to housewives, senior citizens and others who were at home and available to hear his spiel about miracle cleaning products. He did most of his driving at night, when people were comfortably settled in fromnt of their televisions and not at all interested in how to get stubborn spots out of their carpets and draperies.  
  
Late one particular night, Donald was traveling along a familiar stretch of winding road that led through a thick forest and into a town on his regular route. As he came around on especially sharp curve, he was forced to bring his foot down hard on the brake pedal. Had he not been alert, he would have run down a young girl who was wandering directly down the middle of the road.   
  
She stood out in the gloom as a vision of pale skin and dripping white silk. In the illumination cast by the headlights of Donald's car, he could see plainly that the girl was drenched. The filmy fabric of her dress clung to her in wet patches, and her long hair was matted into sodden ropes. She hugged herself tightly and shivered in the chill evening air.  
  
Donald held no grudge for having nearly been forced off the road, and, in fact, felt quite sorry for the girl, who was clearly in need of some assistance. He stepped out of the car and called out to her.  
  
"Are you going into town? I'd be happy to give you a lift."  
  
The girl turned around then, and Donald's knees weakened. She was lovely-even with mascara streaked in the hollows under her eyes and her wet hair pasted to her cheeks and forehead. She didn't answer directly, but gave a slight nod and walked toward the car.  
  
Donald ran around to the passenger-side door, then reached into the car and pulled something from the back seat.   
  
"It's wool," he said as he gallantly placed his own coat around the girl's slender shoulders. "It'll help keep you warm."  
  
"Thank you," the girl whispered to Donald. It was obvious to him that she needed the garment. Her voice was as thin as the watery moonlight, and her waxen skin had felt as cold as ice.  
  
As Donald drove toward town, he tried unsuccessfully to engage his beautiful passenger in conversation. When he asked her how she had come to be soaked, she merely lowered her head and shivered more intensely within the folds of the warm wool coat. When he aked her where she lived, she lifted a hand so thin and pale it was nearly translucent and waved it weakly in the direction in which they were traveling. Finally, Donald decided that great beauty and the fine art of conversation needn't necessarily be contained within the same package, and he stopped trying to make small talk. The two rode on in silence.  
  
The winding road eventually emerged from the dense, dark woods, and as the car crested a hill, the lights of the small town came into view.  
  
"Now, you'll have to tell me where you want to go," said Donald and, in a manner of speaking, the girl did. With vague gestures, she indicated that he should turn here, or there, until finally they were parked in the long paved drive of a handsome brick home that sat at the farthest point of a dead-end street. The street was poorly lit, but the house was not. Two lanterns blazed brightly by the front door, warm light spilled out of every window, and small bulbs shone along the curved front path, ensuring that no one would stumble over some unseen uneven surface.  
  
"Is this your parents' house?" Donald asked. "It's a great-looking place. A lot of carpets and draperies to clean, though-maybe I should give you my card..."  
  
It was then that Donald glanced to his right and was shocked into forgetting about his business cards and his sample case, and even his stupidly hanging jaw. For he found that he was talking to himself-the beautiful girl was gone.  
  
Donald spun around and searched the back seat. It was empty. Donald was impossibly alone. There had been no sound of the car's passenger door opening and closing, no moment when the girl could have slipped quietly away.  
  
Suddenly, Donald's mind was reeling and his breath felt unfamiliar and heavy in his chest. He loosened his colar with one hand and leaned on the car's worn seat for support.   
  
On that seat, his fingers found an icy wet patch of upholstery. Donald recoiled instantly from the numbing cold. Just as instantly, he knew that the girl truly had been there after all. Somehow, she had snuck out of the car and, he had to assume, ran into the house. Of course, there was only one way to know for sure.  
  
Donald walked up the path to the front door and pushed the button beside the name plate with its scripted gold letters spelling "Landon." The sound of the bell had not even begun to fade away when the heavy mahogany door swung open, and Donald found himself face to face with a somber-looking elderly woman.   
  
"I'm not sure exactly what I want to ask you," Donald began.  
  
"That's alright," the woman said. She nodded knowingly and gestured for Donald to come inside. "I expect you were bringing Susan home."  
  
Donald said that although he hadn't known her name, he had delivered a young lady to the end of the drive, and went on to tell the woman his range story.  
  
"I don't know how she got out of the car," he eventrually concluded, "but she seemed real upset, and I wanted to make sure that she got to the house safely."  
  
The woman shook her head sadly, and Donald noted that she seemed to be aged as much by sadness as by the lines that etched her face.  
  
"No, I'm sorry to say that Susan has never managed to return home, although she tries every year, on this night."  
  
When Donald looked confused, the old woman explained: "It's been nearly 20 years, you see. Since the accident. Susuan was at a dance, out at a country hall. On the way home, the car she was in-it left the road and plunged into a lake. Her friends escaped, but Susuan was trapped. Every year since then, on the anniversary of her death, she still tries to come back home."  
  
"And this is the anniversary?" Donald whispered.  
  
The woman nodded.  
  
"So all the lights are on because-you've been expecting her?" he asked.  
  
"In a way," the woman answered mournfully. "I've come to expect someone at the door on this night every year. This year it was you."  
  
She showed Donald out then, past a row of family photographs that hung in the broad entrance hall. It would have been impossible for him to not notice one particular framed poortrait that featured a beautiful young woman in a dress of snowy silk and lace.  
  
Susan's mother, obviously conditioned by years of the same exclamations and questions, answered Donald before he even had a chance to ask.  
  
"Yes," she said, "that was the dress she wore to the dance, on the night that she died."  
  
Donald Whaley was accustomed to lumpy hotel mattresses and usually slept well wherever he lay his body down. That night, however, he could not close his eyes without seeing the girl's pale skin and hollow, frightened eyes, and no matter how tightly he clutched the rough blankets around him, he found himself shivering at the thought of being swallowd by freezing black water.   
  
But by the time the first thin morning light began to show itself in the gap where the hotels room's illfitting curtains should have met, Donald had eased back into comfortable denial.   
  
"It can't be true," he told himself as he showered, shaved and dressed. "It's too farfetched to be true."  
  
But instead of starting his sales route immediately after his customary coffee and eggs, he drove back out to the place where he had first found the girl. He was certain that he would find some clue, some evidence that would calm his mind.  
  
Donald knew the road well and found the hairpin turn easily. Itwas a short distance south of town, by the narrow entrance to the little cemetery.  
  
The cemetery.  
  
It was a fact that had escaped Donald's attention the night before. That was just as well, for it chilled him thoroughly by the light of day.  
  
It's a coincidence, he told himself, a coincidence. Still, he felt drawn into the small burial ground to peruse the grave markers.  
  
The elderly woman had said that her daughter's first name was Susan. The name plate by the doorbell had read Landon. So when Donald found that particular name on the headstone of a well-tended grave, he had to admit that it belonged to his elusive passenger. But even if there had been no name carved there, even if the granite had been smooth, blank and anonymous, he would have known.   
  
For there, draped across the stone, still smelling faintly of lake water, was Donald Whaley's woolen coat. 


	4. The Hook

Campfire Ghost Stories  
  
by Jo-Anne Christensen  
  
Stories Told By Firelight  
  
The Hook  
  
A couple who had just been out on a most enjoyable date were on their way home. The young man thought that his prospects for romance were good and he was reluctant to call an end to the evening, so he took a detour. Soon the girl noticed that they were driving down a dark, deserted strech of road that was known as Lover's Lane.  
  
"I don't know if this is such a good idea," she told her date.  
  
"Nonsense," he said. "I only want to spend a little more time with you. It's beautiful here, and private. I thought we could get to know each other better."  
  
And so he parked the car in the deepest shadows of the roadside, ostensibly where he and the girl could enjoy gazing out at the moon and stars that peeked through the heavy canopy of leaves. But, in fact, he only seemed to be interested in the view within the car. He slid across the front seat and embraced his date.  
  
She allowed him to kiss her once or twice, but she kept her eyes open. She seemed skittish and distracted, and was more concerned with nervously surveying the area around the car than with pleasing her date. Eventually, he could not hide his frustration.  
  
"What's wrong?" he complained as he pulled away with a pout on his face. "You liked me well enough back at the movie theater."  
  
"I do like you," the girl insisted. "I'm just frightened out here in the middle of nowhere. I heard today on the radio that there's a deranged killer on the loose."  
  
The yong man had heard the report too. The murderous maniac was from a nearby asylum and was known best for his grisly weapon-the sharpened metal hook that he wore in place of his missing right hand.  
  
"Alright," the fellow siad gallantly. "Now I understand. But there's really nothing to worry about. That lunatic is probably miles from here by now. And besides, I'm here to protect you."  
  
With that, the young man advanced upon his date again, wrapping her tightly in his arms and breathing heavily into her ear. For a few minutes, the girl tried to get into the spirit of things. Still, every snap of a twig or sigh of the breeze caused her to jump and shiver with fear.  
  
When she gasped "What's that!?" for the fifth time, the young man ran out of patience.  
  
"It's nothing!" he snapped. "There is no one here but us! When will you stop behaving like some frightened child?"  
  
His harsh words sent the girl into a fit of tears.  
  
"Well, I am frightened!" she sobbed. "It's so dark here, and so far from town, and I just can't shake this horrible feeling that something bad is about to happen!"  
  
"Something bad has already happened," the young man seethed. "You've ruined our evening. We might as well just go home."  
  
He started the car, threw the transmission into gear and stepped on the gas pedal. The tires spun for a second, then gripped, sending out a spray of dirt and gravel. The car bounced violently as it left the seclusion of the parking spot and climbed up onto the shoulder of the road.  
  
On the dirve home, both the young man and young woman were silent. He drove aggressively, demonstrating his fury over being rebuffed in such a childish way. She sat as far away from him as was possible, partly out of embarrassment. She felt relieved that they were approaching the lights and safety of civilization but also foolish for having spoiled the night and invoked her date's wrath over something as silly and insubstantial as intuition.  
  
By the time the young man slowed the car to a stop in front of the girl's house, he had decided upon a suitable plan of behavior.  
  
Even though I have every right to be angry, I'll still get out and open the door for her, he thought. That'll show her that I'm a gentleman, and then she'll feel silly for having acted he way she did and all the more sorry for having driven me away.  
  
Without a word, he got out and walked around the front of the car. The girl remained in her seat, feeling sheepish and wondering what sort of conciliatory approach might be most effective. She was lost in her thoughts, but eventually realized that it had been seeral seconds since her date had left the car, and still he had not opened her door.  
  
She turned and looked out her side window. THe young man was there, standing several feet away, looking pale and shaken. His face was twisted into an expression of revulsion and horror. His gaze was fixed upon the passenger door of the car.  
  
"What's wrong? What is it?" the girl cried, and she opened the door and leapt out of the car. This jolted her date out of his fozen state.  
  
"Don't look," he begged her. "Let's go to the house. Don't look."  
  
But the girl couldn't stop herself. She turned in the direction of her boyfriend's gaze and fell to the ground in a dead faint.  
  
For there, hanging from the handle of the passenger-side door, was a gleaming metal hook. 


	5. Children of the Tracks

Campfire Ghost Stories  
  
by Jo-Anne Christensen  
  
Stories Told By Firelight  
  
Children of the Track  
  
At the edge of a town not far away, there is a set of train tracks that cuts through tall weeds and across a few worn streets, dividing the less desirable part of town into neighborhoods that most would classify as shabby and shabbier. Many of the homes there are little more than shacks; many of the people there are trapped in a cycle of poverty that will never release them. Often their stories are sad, and sometimes they have been tragic. On one crisp fall evening, a young man named Paul drove three of his friends out to those tracks, to tell them one of the more tragic tales.  
  
"Couldn't you habe told us at the coffee shop?" complained his girlfriend. The car's heater was broken and there was a good movie playing at the fourplex in the mall. It seemed to her that sitting in discomfort, listening to one of Paul's farfetched tales was a waste of an evening.   
  
"It wouldn't have been the same, telling the story somewhere else," Paul explained. "You wouldn't have believed me."  
  
"Like this will make a difference," said one of the friends in the back seat.  
  
Paul ignored the comment and made a right-hand turn onto the shadowy street that crossed the tracks. The pavement rose up in a little hill to meet the rail bed, and when the car reached the plateau that lay directly across the rails, Paul slowed it to a stop. The car was straddling the tracks.  
  
Paul's friends were about to voice their objections when he distracted them by doing something even more curious. He stepped out of the car, went around to the back and pulled a small sack of white flour out of the trunk. He ripped the bag open and sprinkled its contents liberally over the chrome bumper. Paul's friends watched through the rear window with expressions of blank confusion.  
  
When Paul climbed back into the car, all three of his passengers askd for an explanation.  
  
"I'll tell you later," was all he said. "It'll make sense to you then."  
  
And then he turned to them and told his story.   
  
"Not so long ago," he began, "there was a poor family who lived down there, at the end of that street. There were seven of them, in a little shack of a house. Five kids. One day, the father piled all of those kids into the back of his old, beat-up pickup truck, because they were going across town to visit their grandmother. They got as far as the train crossing-right here, where we are now-when the truck stalled. It wasn't in the best of shape, and it often did that. Usually, the father knew how to fiddle with the engine to get it started again. But on this particular night there was no time to turn the ignition key just so or to feather the gas pedal. On this night, he had crossed the tracks at a bad time and misjudged the distance of the massive train that was rolling towards them.  
  
"He jumped out of the cab, but before he could do anything to save the kids, who were bundled up in the box of the truck and too stunned to move, the train was on them. The wreck was terrible. They say that people heard the sound of twisting metal for miles. The children, though, they didn't make a sound. Didn't have time. And they died, all five of them."  
  
Paul's girlfriend shivered in her fake fur jacket.  
  
"That's depressing," she declared. "Did you haul us all the way out here just to depress us?"  
  
"No, there's more," Paul told her. He allowed a moment's silence for dramatic effect and then carried on.  
  
"A few months after the accident happened, a woman was driving over the tracks, here, when she ran out of gas. Her car gave out, right on the rail bed. Right where all those little kids had died. That alone probably gave her the chills. But the fact that there was a train chugging down the track toward her, that definitely would have done it.  
  
"She was just about to abandon her car when, suddenly, it started to roll. It rolled right off the tracks, here, and down that little slope, and stopped at the bottom. The train roared by, and her car wasn't so much as scratched."  
  
"So the car rolled down the hill. Big deal." One of the fellows in the back seat found it difficult to mask is boredom.   
  
"But the track isn't on a slope," Paul countered. "And anyways, that wasn't the only that happened. About a year after that, someone had a tire blow out, right on this spot, and the rim wouldn't roll over the rail. Again, there was a train coming. And again, in the nick of time, the car mysteriously moved out of harm's way. It's happened plenty more times since then. And everybody around here thinks the same thing: those people were saved by the spirits of those little kids who died when the train hit them.  
  
"Think about it," Paul said, and his eyes were shining with wonder, "the ghosts of five little kids who don't want anyone else to meet the same fate!"  
  
Paul's girlfriend cleared her throat, and the two youths in the backseat snorted derisively.  
  
"Yeah, whatever," said one of them. "But if you don't mind, I'd like to get back to civilization."  
  
"Me too," said the other. "Plus, if you don't move this heap, we'll be the next ghosts haunting the track. The 8:15 train is comin' through here any time."  
  
Right on cue, a whilste sounded in the distance. All four people in the car turned to look in the direction of the soun, and Paul's girlfriend plucked nervously at his sleeve.  
  
"Let's go," she pleaded.  
  
Paul looked at her and smiled slyly.  
  
"No," he said, and his voice was smooth and confident. "Let's stay. Let's stay and see what happens."  
  
And with that, he reached forward and switched off the car's ignition.  
  
The boys in the backseat wasted no time on tact.  
  
"You're nuts," announced one.  
  
"Totally," agreed the other. And with the sound of simultaneously slamming doors, they were gone.  
  
Paul's girlfriend was less willing to be seen as a deserter. She appealed to Paul one more time.  
  
"Please, the train's getting close!"  
  
She was right. The engine was visible in the distance. Its headlight shone on half of Paul's grinning face, giving him a maniacal appearance. When he made no response and no move to start the car, his girlfriend reached for the keys.  
  
Paul was faster. He snatched the keys out of the ignition and threw them out his half-open window into the tall grass that grew between the tracks adn the street. It was more than his girlfriend could stand, and she fled the car screaming.  
  
"You're crazy, Paul!" she shrieked. "You're going to die!" The approaching train underscored her prediction with a prolonged blast of its whistle. Paul paid no attention to the warning, though. He simply sat in the car, his face calm but his eyes bright with excitement as he watched untold tons of steel bearing down on him.  
  
The few seconds that followed were chaos. The intese white headlight of the train became blindingly bright as it drew closer. The blaring of its whistle mixed with the grinding sound of brakes being applied and the frantic sideline shouts of Paul's horrified companions. Only Paul remained still, quite and expectant as he sat behind the wheel.  
  
His expectations were rewarded when he felt the car shudder. It began to rock a little, then rolled forward, slowly but steadily. The vehicle cleared the track bed and began to roll down the short incline no more than a half second before the train thundered past.   
  
The car came to a stop and Paul leapt out with his hands raised triumphantly in the air. His girlfriend ran to him, sobbing. His friends approached more slowly. They were relieved, but still angry.  
  
"I told you!" Paul whooped. "You saw it for yourselves! The little ghost kids saved me!"  
  
"Shut up!" one of his friends screamed in response. "You got lucky! It's an optical illusion-those tracks have to be on a hill! You almost got yourself killed telling us a stupid ghost story, and there's no such thing as ghosts!"  
  
"Oh, really?" said Paul, and his voice was, again, like silk. He walked around to the back of the car, and a smug smile spread across his face. Eventually, his friends followed. When they saw what he was looking at, their eyes grew wide and their jaws dropped open in astonishment.  
  
The proof was plain to see. On the chrome bumper, in the heavy dusting of white flour about which they had all forgotten, there they were: five distinct sets of child-sized handprints. 


	6. The Warning

Campfire Ghost Stories  
  
by Jo-Anne Christensen  
  
Stories Told By Firelight  
  
The Warning  
  
A woman who was leaving on a long road trip was planning to drive through the night to a city several hundred miles away. She was traveling alone, which made her mother nervous.  
  
"Be careful," cautioned the mother. "Don't trust strangers. There's a maniac on the loose, you know, and he preys on single young women just like you."  
  
The woman was quick to dismiss her mother's fears. It was true that there was a man who had escaped from a nearby prison, and it was true that he had abducted two young women and brutally murdered them with a large butcher knife, but what of it? The woman felt that there was nothing to be afraid of, as long as a person was street-smart and kept her wits about her.   
  
"Don't worry about me," she told her mother laughingly. "I'll be fine. I know how to take care of myself."  
  
She had meant what she said, but the warning lingered on her mind.  
  
The sun had already set when the woman stopped at a lonely service statino by the side of the highway. Heavy clouds obscured the moon and stars, and a rainstorm threatened.  
  
Hurriedly, she filled the gas tank and made use of the dingy little restroom. When she approachd the counter to pay her bill, the attendant smiled in a friendly fashion.  
  
"Looks like it's going to be a nasty night," he said as he used a grimy thumb to point at the way his outdoor signs were whipping in the wind.  
  
The woman nodded but said nothing. In the gloom of the night, away from the comforting lights of town, she didn't feel as courageous. The servicestation attendant might have been a perfectly fine person, but she had no way of knowing that for certain. He was a stranger to her, and she had been warned to not talk to strangers. As she thought of this, she took her change from the man and hurried out the door, toward the safety of her car.  
  
She was almost there when she heard the bells on the door jangle behind her.  
  
"Wait a minute!" the attendant called after her.  
  
The woman didn't turn. Instead, she quickened her pace.  
  
"I'm in a hurry!" she lied as she ran around the front of her car and yanked open the driver's side door. She slid in behind the wheel, closed the door and locked it. When she looked up, she saw the attendant standing inches away.  
  
Inside the well-it station, he had appeared to be only a little grubby and disheveled. But outside, under the arc of unnatural fluorescent bulbs, the attendant had taken on a decidedly unsettling countenance. His face was pale and unshaven, and his eyes were wide and darting. When he spoke, even his voice had a different quality.  
  
"I've made a mistake," he said to the woman. "Gave you the wrong change. Just come back inside for a minute and we'll sort it out."  
  
A dense, cold knot formed within the woman's stomach.  
  
"I have to go! I don't care about my change!" she yelled through the closed window. She turned the ignition key and breathed a silent prayer of thanks when her occasionally unreliable car roared to life.  
  
But the attendant was insistent.  
  
"No, it's you who owes me money," he said. "It'll just take a minute. THen you can be on your way!"  
  
He stepped in front of the woman's car then, blocking her way. More than his nervous gaze or his obvious lie, this frightened her. She fumbled in her purse for a handful of coins, and opened her window just wide enough to throw the money out.  
  
"Here!" she cried. "That's more than enough! Now, let me go!"  
  
The attendant leaned forward. He placed his hands on the hood of the car and looked directly into the woman's eyes. Slowly, he shook his head. Silently, he mouth the word "no."  
  
It was so threatening, so loathsome, the woman was jolted into action. She put the car in gear and stepped on the gas pedal. The attendant jumped out of the way, barely in time. The front fender of the car still managed to brush his thigh with enough force that he was knocked down and sent rolling across the pavement.  
  
As her car swerved wildly onto the highway, the woman risked one backward glance. To her horror, she saw the attendant making a limping run for the pickup truck that sat parked in the stall marked "employees."  
  
She pressed her foot into the gas pedal, pushing the car to its limit. But the car's limit was less than enough, and soon there were headlights looming behind her. In the darkness, the woman couldn't see that it was the attendant's truck following her, but she knew. The driver repeatedly flashed his headlights on high beam and blasted his horn insistently.  
  
Oh my God! the woman thought. He's trying to drive me off the road!  
  
The truck advanced until it was scant inches away from the car's bumper, and its horn blared out with deafening persistence. When the driver backed off slighty, it was only so that he could blind the woman with a staccato flashing of lights. Between this terrifying interference and her own state of panic, the woman feared that it wouldn't be long before she misjudged one of the twists and turns of the dark highway.  
  
As she was thinking that, she sped past a familiar sign. "U-Pick Produce, ½ Mile,"it read, and the woman remembered the farm where she had once filled a gallon bucket with fresh blueberries. She knew that the drive was coming up on her right; it was a sharp turn that drivers were apt to miss, unless they were prepared...  
  
The woman saw the gravel lane and cranked hard on the steering wheel. She felt the car go up to two tires, where it wobbled briefly before coming down with a spine-compressing thud.   
  
There was a noise then, a violent noise that began with a squealing of rubber on pavement, as the pickup truck tried too late to follow the car. The noise was followed by the brittle snapping of tree trunks and the scream of twisting metal. Finally, there was a soft whoosh of flames. The truck had left the road and torn a destructive path down the shallow gully that divided the highway and the U-Pick Produce drive.  
  
The woman felt overwhelming relief wash through her. She slowed the car, turned it around, and with a trembling hand shifted it into park. For a moment, she watched the flaming wreckage that imprisoned the maniacal service-station attendant. Then she closed her eyes, leaned forward unti lher damp forehead was touching the steering wheel, and waited for the tears to come.  
  
But they didn't. In their place, there was a strange sensation of triumph.  
  
I was right, the woman thought. I know perfectly well how to take care of myself! There's never a reason to be afraid, as long as I keep my wits about me!  
  
When she finished congratulating herself, the woman sat up once more and opened her eyes. Some small movement in the rearview mirror captured her attention, and she glanced up to see what it mght be.   
  
It took only a split second for her to realize that she had been wrong. Wrong about her cocky beliefs and wrong about the poor, dead service-station attendant. He hadn't been trying to kill her; it was suddenly clear that he'd been trying to warn her.  
  
For there, in the deep shadows of the back seat, sat a large man with a leering eye and an evil smile. When he noticed the woman was looking at him, he smiled more broadly and held something up. The flickering orange flames of the burning truck wreckage reflection so beautifully in the polished razor-edged blade of his very large butcher knife. 


	7. Bloody Mary

Campfire Ghost Stories  
  
by Jo-Anne Christensen  
  
Stories Told By Firelight  
  
Bloody Mary  
  
It was Kelly Parson's 14th birthday, and she ws hosting a slumber party in the basement rec room of her parents' home. There were big bowls of popcorn and potato chips, and a greasy box with couple slices of forgotten piza sitting on the coffee table. There were endless music videos coming out of the small television set. There were sleeping bags, too-five in total. They were for Kelly, her three best friends and her 11-year-old sister, Carmen. Carmen had been included only because the girls' parents had said there would be no party otherwise.  
  
Kelly and her friends asserted their superiority by making it clear to Carmen that while they could be forced to endure her presence, they could not be made to actually acknowledge it. They gossiped and danced and did each other's hair and makeup, all while managing to exclude the younger girl completely.  
  
Carmen was accustomed to receiving abuse and rejection from her sister. To be ostracized by a group was significantly more demoralizing, though, and she soon decided that she would be better off upstairs, in her own small bedroom.  
  
"Where do you think you're going?" Carmen had only climbed three steps when Kelly grabbed her by the hair and pulled her back down.  
  
"Ow!" complained Carmen. "What do you care if I leave? You don't want me around."  
  
"Truer words were never spoken," lamented Kelly in a world-weary tone. Her friends snickered obediently. "But if you go upstairs with that 'boo-hoo' face, Mom and Dad will think I've been mean to you, and they will come down here and put a damper on our party. Believe me, otherwise I wouldn't care."  
  
"Well, I don't care, either," Carmen said bravely. "And you have been mean to me! You won't let me do anything that you're doing, and you won't talk to me. So I'm going"  
  
Carmen turned and began to march up the stairs.  
  
"Okay, you win," said Kelly.  
  
"What do you mean?" Carmen asked cautiously as she turned around.  
  
"You can hang out with us. Do what we're doing."   
  
Kelly's friends began to moan in objection, but she silenced them witha slight wave of her hand.  
  
"I was thinking," she said in a level voice, "that we could play 'Bloody Mary.'"  
  
There was a moment of complete silence.  
  
Carmen finally said, "What's that?" and there was a snort of laughter from one of Kelly's minions. She was silenced with rapid-fire elbow jabs from the other two.  
  
"It's a sort of game-but a serious one," Kelly explained coolly. "It's not for kids, so if you think you can't handle..."  
  
"I can handle anything you can handle," said Carmen, and she walked back down the stairs. Kelly smiled.  
  
Five minutes later, the television had been turned off, as had the lights. THe girls were huddled outside the small basement bathroom. Candles had been lit and placed in front of the vanity mirror, on either side of the sink. In this shadowy, flickering atmosphere, Kelly gave Carmen her instructions.  
  
"It's a great challenge," she told her saucer-eyed sister, "and a dangerous one. You're going to perform a ceremony to summon the spirit of a powerful, long-dead witch. Her name was Mary Worth-but she was known to most as 'Bloody Mary.' Now, what you need to do is stand in front of the mirror and close your eyes. Then spin around 13 times, each time say 'Bloody Mary.' Say it with feeling, and concentrate on drawing her spirit back from the grave. After the 13th turn, you can open your eyes and look into the mirror. If you see the hag's face, the chant has worked. Then be careful-because she'll try to scratch your eyes out. But if you're strong enough, you can will her to give you her power."  
  
Carmen swallowed hard. She looked inot the small bathroom, which with two candles and a story had been transformed into a terrifying altar. Then she looked at Kelly. The older girl nodded, and Carmen knew that she had no choice but to walk through the door. She had to prove herself to the older girls.  
  
The instant that the bathroom door clicked shut, Kelly and her friends let their solemn expressions crumble. They clapped their hands over their mouths to keep hysterical laughter from escaping.  
  
"Shh! Shhhhh!" Kelly hissed. "If she hears you, she;ll figure it out! Now, go hide! In a minute, she'll come out of that bathroom all freaked out and dizzy, and we'll take turns jumping out at her! She'll probably pee her pants-which should prove to Mom and Dad that she's too immature to hang out with us."  
  
The girls scattered then and found furniture, walls and draperies to hide behind. They forced themselves to stop snickering, and waited.  
  
Kelly had positioned herself on teh far side of an old storage cabinet near the bathroom. With her ear pressed against the wall, she could hear Carmen's voice chanting the witch's name. Silently, Kelly counted along. At the 13th repetition, she felt a wicked little thrill of excitement. She had her breath and prepared to pounce.  
  
For several seconds, there was nothing but silence. Then came a scream that shattereed that silence and turned Kelly's excitement to panic.  
  
"Carmen!" Kelly yelled as she ran from her hidding place ot the bathroom door. "Knock it off!"  
  
But the screams continued. Kelly tried the doorknob, but found it locked. She pounded on the door with the heel of her hand.  
  
"Get out here dimwit! Mom and Dad are probably on their way down!"  
  
"Should we stay in our hidding places?" one of the girls asked.  
  
"No, you idiot! Get over here and help me with the door! Turn on some lights! Do something useful!"  
  
Kelly could hear her parents then, scurrying across the creaking hardwood on the main floor. She knew that she had only seconds to get her hysterical sister, and the situation in general, under control.  
  
"I'm coming in, Carmen!" she warned, and threw her shoulder hard against the door. The flimsy lock gave wa, and Kelly fell gracelessly on the cold bathroom tile.  
  
The bathroom was in total darkness. The candles had either gone out or been put out, and Kelly found that there wasn't enough light to see her own hand in front of her face, let alone her sister, who was somewhere in the area of the shower stall, if one could judge by where the whimpers and moans were coming from.  
  
"Someone turn on a damn light!" demanded Kelly, and someone did.  
  
Light filled the bathroom and revealed teh gory scene that was within it. Slashes of crimson formed a horrifying cross-hatch pattern on the mirror and vanity top. Wet, red handprints smeared teh back wall and opaque glass door to the shower stall.  
  
Using two fingers, as though she was touching some repulsive thing, Kelly pulled open that door. There, crumpled on the floor of the stall, was Carmen. She raised her head, showing Kelly and the others that her face was covered in a network of bleeding lacerations.  
  
"I saw Bloody Mary," she rasped through jaggedly cut lips.  
  
And then it was Kelly's turn to scream.  
  
***  
  
Six days latyer, Carmen came home from the hospital. Her face was covered in white patches of dressing, and she was missing a small bit of hair, where one row of stitches extended. Aside from that, she looked fine, almost better than her parents, who wore expressins of great concern and had been told to watch their daughter closely for any signs of self-destructive behavior.  
  
She announced that she was going downstairs to watch television, and after a flurry of persistent, silent gestures from their parents, Kelly said that she would join her.  
  
For a while, the girls watched quietly. Finally, Kelly asked Carmen how she was feeling.  
  
"I feel good," was Carmen's answer. "I feel really, really good. Becasue, Kel, a few things are going to change around here."  
  
"Right," snorted Kelly. "I doubt it."  
  
Carmen only looked at Kelly and smiled. Behind the bandages and scabs, there was a confidence the girl had never before shown.  
  
"First, I want my CDs back," she said. "And my swim goggles. And the next time your moronic friends want to come over, just tell them 'no.'"  
  
Kelly looked at Carmen and shook her head.  
  
"You really did flip out," she cnocluded. "You're a nut case, just like I always said."  
  
Carmen barely reacted to her older sister's diagnosis. She turned casually back to the television.  
  
"Nah, I'm not crazy. I'm just different since I saw Bloody Mary. You're going to have to listen to me now."  
  
"You did not see Bloody Mary," Kelly said, although she was regarding Carmen nervously.  
  
"Oh, yes I did," Carmen insisted, and she turned back to face her sister and leaned in close. "I saw Bloody Mary-and she looked just like me."  
  
***  
  
This time, the girls' parents responded to the screams in half the time. Oddly enough, though, there was twice as much blood. 


	8. The Message

Campfire Ghost Stories  
  
by Jo-Anne Christensen  
  
Stories Told By Firelight  
  
The Message  
  
A young college student was studying in her dorm room when her roommate walked in.  
  
"I'm exhausted," complained teh roommate. "Would you mind studying somewhere else, so I can get some sleep?"  
  
Thestudent was sympathetic and readily agreed. She gathered u pher books and her papers and walked across campus to the library.  
  
She had been working there for hours when a group of friends found her. They told her that she looks as though she needed a break and that they were on their way to a pub, which would be just the thing to take her mind off her books.  
  
The student hesitated for only a moment or two. Then she agreed to go, but said that they'd have to stop by her dormitory on the way, so she could pick up her wallet and sweater. Everyone agreed.  
  
"Wait here," the student said to her friends when they reached the front steps of the building. "I'll ony be a minute." She ran lightly up the stairs on her floor and walked softly down the hallway.  
  
When she reached the door to her room, she inserted teh key and turned teh knob ever so slowly and quietly. She was determined not to disturb her sleeping roommate. With that in mind, she paused when her fingers touched the light switch.  
  
The light will surely wake her, the student thought. And really, I don't need to turn it on. After all, the room was very small and she was very familiar with every swuare inch of it. So she stepped quietly into the darkness and and closed the door to the hall behind her.  
  
She took a few steps into the room, with her hands held out cautiously. When her fingers touched the little desk where she did most of her studying, she stopped. She set her books on the desktop, and then, very slowly and quietly, pulled open the top drawer. A few seconds later, she felt the familiar worn leather of her wallet. She picked it up and closed the drawer.  
  
The young student then inched across the room to the one tiny closet the two girls shared. She let her hands lead her along the wall until she came to the closet door. Her roommate had left it ajar, which made it easier to quietly reach inside and grope around until she felt the nubby woolen sleeve of her warmest cardigan. The student slipped the sweater from its hanger, wrapped it around her shoulders and left the room as quietly as she had entered.  
  
The girl rejoined her friends, who had been waiting patiently. The group proceeded to the pub, where they enjoyed themselves completely.  
  
Several hours later, the student finally returned to her dormitory. She was met there by a most disturbing scene. Several police cruisers sat in front of the building, their lights flashing with eerie rhythm. There was an ambulance, too, and a dark sedan discreetly marked "coroner." Crime scene barricades were being erected on the lawn, which swarmed with uniformed cops and somber-looking detectives.  
  
"What happened here?" the student asked person after person. No one would give her an answer. "Is someone hurt? Who is it?" she begged." I have to know if my roommate's alright!"  
  
"There'll be a statement issued in the morning," was all anyone would say. But the young student couldn't wait until then to find out if her roommate was safe. She ran into the building and up the staircase, ignoring the barricades and ducking under the lines of yellow crime scene tape. She dodged every person who tried to stop her and ran until she reached the hall outside her door. She was horrified to see a concentration of investigators there.  
  
"Who let this girl in?" barked a red-faced detective who appeared to be in charge.  
  
"Please," the stuend gasped, "that's my room. I need to find my roommate."  
  
The detective softened a little and walked over to the student's side.  
  
"I'm sorry," he said. "We'll need to talk to you, miss. I'm afraid your roommmate is dead. Some maniac murdered her-somewhere around seven o'clock, we think."  
  
The student felt faint.  
  
"That's impossible!" she said. "I stoppped back here about seven thirty. Everything was fine."  
  
"You were here, this evening?" asked the detective.  
  
"Yes, for a minute. To get a sweater and my wallet."  
  
"Well, then," the detective said, "perhaps you can help us make sense of something."  
  
He led her into the room then, being careful to shield her eyes from the grisly scene being photographed and investigated. He directed her into the bathroom and flipped on the light switch.  
  
"Do you have any idea what this means?" the detective asked teh student. He pointed to the mirror.  
  
The student looked up and felt her knees weaken. Written on the glass, in dried streaks of crimson, was a message. Clearly, it had been left for her  
  
It read: Aren't you glad you didn't turn on the lights? 


	9. Skinned Tom

Campfire Ghost Stories  
  
by Jo-Anne Christensen  
  
Stories Told By Firelight  
  
Skinned Tom  
  
The heavy side door of the honkey tonk opened with a rusty groan, spilling a drunken man and woman and a few bars of lively fiddle music out into the humid summer night. It closed with a loud slam, which announced to the couple that they were officially seperated from the crowd and the party. They stood alone in the red glare of the exit sign, wondering what to say to one another now that they no longer had to shout. Conversation was not a necessity for them, though, so they were not overly concerned.  
  
They began to cross the dark parking lot, letting the sounds of the party grow more and more distant. The farther they walked, the more slowly they progressed, as they stopped every few feet to share a passionate kiss. Finaly, the man resolved to sweep his companion off her feet and carry her to his pickup truck. She giggled with delight and kissed him some more.   
  
"I'm so glad I met you tonight," she said.  
  
"Yeah, we seem to be hitting it off alright," the man answered with a grin. Then he paused and looked at her in all seriousness.  
  
"Just so there's no -misunderstanding-you do want to come back to the motel with me, right?"  
  
"Absolutely," said teh woman, and she nibbled on the man's earlobe for emphasis. He laughed and pulled out the key to unlock his truck.  
  
The lock popped up and the man reached for the door handle. Then he stopped cold and his breath left him in a frightened shudder.  
  
"What is it?" asked the woman.  
  
The man was suddenly pale and weak and sober. He set the woman back down on her feet with a clumbsy and unceremonious motion.  
  
"The plan's off," he said, his voice tight. "Go back inside. Or go home. You can't come with me."   
  
"Well, why on earth?" the woman wailed. "Everything was fine two minutes ago! Don't I even get an explanation?"  
  
As she voiced her complaints, the man climbed into his truck. He was about to slam the door in the woman's face when he felt a touch of guilt. He had asked the woman to leave with him, so he probably did owe her an explanation. He turned back to her, and in a shaking voice, offered one.  
  
"I just saw 'Skinned Tom,'" he said.  
  
"You saw who?" the woman responded in her too-loud party voice. "Some guy named Tom? 'Cause you look like you saw a ghost."  
  
The man reached out and shook the woman's shoulder with abrupt force.  
  
"Skinned Tom is a ghost!" he hissed. "A warning ghost! Don't tell me you don't know about him!"  
  
"I don't know about him!" the woman insisted. "So let go of me!"  
  
The man released teh woman's shoulder. When she began to rub at the sore spot where he had dug his fingers in deeply, he felt another wave of guilt. To ease it, he decided that he would tell the woman the story.  
  
"It happened a long time ago," he said. "Tom was this good-looking guy who lived in the next county over. Same as me. When he was visiting here, he met up with a woman one night. They ended up somewhere-well, somewhere like this, I guess-making out in Tom's car.  
  
"The thing this guy didn't know was that the woman was married. And just as things were really heating up, this great big guy yanks open the car door and drags Tom and his woman friend outside. It was the husband. He didn't do too much to his wife, but he had a knife and he used it on Tom. He made sure that Tom wasn't going to get any more women with his handsome looks. He took the knife and he peeled every square inch of skin off of his face."  
  
The man paused, and looked nervously around before continuing..  
  
"Like I said, Skinned Tom's a ghost now. And when I just went to open up the door of the truck, there... When I looked, and I could see a reflection in the window... "The man stoppped and shook his head.  
  
"I saw him," he finally blurted out. "I saw him standing right beside us, with those white eyes staring out of that awful, bloody face. It looked terrible, like raw meat."  
  
"Good Lord," the woman said quietly. She seemed several degrees more sober. "You saw that?"  
  
The man nodded. THe muscles along his jaw tensed and released rhythmically.  
  
"Well, no wonder you're upset," the woman soothed. Then she moved in closer to the man and placed her hand on his arm. "But I can make you feel better, baby," she said.  
  
The man recoiled instantly.  
  
"Don't you get it?" he hissed. "Skinned Tom doesn't just show himself to everyone! Only as a warning, to guys like me! Guys who are about to get into trouble with a married woman!"  
  
He pushed the woman out of the way then and slammed the door of the truck closed. As he started the engine, she pounded on the window indignantly.  
  
"I'm not married!" she shrieked. "Who told you I was married?"  
  
But the man wasn't listening. He backed out of the parking stall so quickly the woman had to jump back to avoid being struck by the truck's side mirror. Then he sped away, leaving her alone in the most distant corner of the quiet, dark parking lot.  
  
For a minute or two, she watched his tail lights, thinking that he was bound to come to his senses and return for her. When he didn't, she cursed loudly and began walking back toward the honky tonk.  
  
Although it was warm outside, she found herself shivering. She also found herself thinking about the ghost story and feeling more than a little anxious to get back to the comforting lights and company of the bar.  
  
"Skinned Tom," she said with disgust, trying to force herself to dismiss it. But she found that she could not. And she wondered then if Skinned Tom ever acted as more than a ghost of warning. She wondered if he ever acted out of anger, seeking revenge against the woman who had trapped him.  
  
Those were the thoughts passing through the woman's mind as she approached the door of the honky tonk, and they caused her to pause. By the light of the red exit sign, she opened up her purse and took out something that had been carefully wrapped in a tissue. She glanced nervously behind her as she unfolded the tiny package. Inside, there was a ring.  
  
"Leave me alone, Tom," she said in a quivery voice. Then she slipped the ring back onto the third finger of her left hand, opened the door and returned to the party. 


	10. The Screaming Bridge

Campfire Ghost Stories  
  
by Jo-Anne Christensen  
  
Stories Told By Firelight  
  
The Screaming Bridge  
  
There is a certain small town in the next county where it is tradition for students to have an informal party on graduation night at the little campsite by the bridge. IT has been that way for years; for decades, in fact. It always has been and always will be a fine thing to drink bootleg liquor from a paper cup and kiss someone under the stars far from the judging eyes of adults.  
  
Those adults never once tried to put a stop to the campsite party. Maybe it was because they had their own fond post-grad memories. Maybe it was because they saw the get-together as being harmless. Although, the truth is that two terrible things have happened at those parties. One is said to have happened a long time ago. The other happened just this year.  
  
This year, the valedictorian was a fellow named Ted Hobbes. Ted was bright, without beeing bookish; good-looking, without seeming full of himself; and likeable, despite his obvious wealth of attributes. When he stood by the bonfire that night, all eyes were upon him. Ted handled the spotlight with practiced ease and deflected it frequently and generously upon those who were less popular.  
  
"Why don't you tell us one of your stories, Chris?" he said to a pimply boy who stood half in the shadows.  
  
"Oh, I don't know..." the boy named Chris stammered. He scuffed his feet in the dirt but smiled at the attention.  
  
Ted then told the group that Chris had been in his English class and that he was going to be a great writer one day.  
  
"I don't know about 'great,'" Chris said modestly. Then he brightened with an idea. "Hey, I do know a story that I can tell you, though! A ghost story that takes place right here! Right by this bridge!"  
  
Everyone agreed that a ghost story told besdie the campfire would be a perfect idea, and they urged Chris to continue. He took a shy step closer to the flickering flames and told his tale.  
  
"From what I hear, this happened about 30 years ago," he said. "It was graduation night, just like tonight, and all the grads had come here for the party. Most of them were having a good time, but a girl named Brenda Jones was not. Brenda's boyfriend had decided to break up with her and had given her the bad news at the party. Now, I guess she was just nuts over him and she didn't take it too well. They were over there on the riverbank and people up here, at the campsite, could her her crying and carrying on.  
  
"The boyfriend tried his best to calm Brenda down, but eventually she was so hysterical that she just ran off. This guy was hunting though the bushes on the bank-he got some of his buddies to search too-but they couldn't find her. And then, all of a sudden, they hear this scream from right up there, on the bridge.  
  
"Everyone looked, and there she was. Brenda Jones screamed once, so everyone would look at her, then once more as she did a swan dive into the river.  
  
"From what I heard, they never found her body. This river moves pretty fast and if she did turn up, it would have been a couple hundred miles downstream. Her spirit, though, that stayed right here."  
  
"What do you mean?" asked one of the girls who had been hanging on every word of the story.  
  
"Well-now this is a legend, so I donb't know for sure-but they say that when the wind is calm and conditions are just right, you can hear Brenda Jones screaming on her way down to the cold water. Some people even say that she's still trying to get her boyfriend's attention, trying to get him to join her in her watery grave."  
  
The girls all shivered then and cast nervous glances toward the water. The boys laughed and made joking ghostly sounds to prove that the story hadn't affected them one bit. Only Ted Hobbes stood still and quiet, staring thoughtfully into the fire.  
  
"That was creepy," he finally said to Chris. "Good story, man."  
  
But Ted didn't really look as though he had enjoyed the tale and, in an antisocial move that was unlike him, he turned away from his friends and went down to the river where he could be alone.  
  
Five minutes later, he was back. There was dirt on his white pullover, from having clawed his way quickly up the back, and an expression of terror on his face.  
  
"Did you hear that?" he asked in a panicked voice. "Did any of you hear that, just a minute ago?"  
  
All the young people who weren't too busy necking, shrugged and looked at each other and said they hadn't heard anything unusual.  
  
Ted stared at them in disbelief.  
  
"You had to have heard it!" he said. "It was a scream! Someone was screaming over on the bridge!"  
  
They all laughed then congradulated Ted on having made such a good effort to frighten them. But nobody was about to fall for an improvisational version of the story of Brenda Jone's doomed ghost.  
  
Ted denied fabricating the story, but as he looked from one bemused face to the next, he began to doubt himself.  
  
"Maybe my imagination did get the better of me," he admitted. But no more than a few seconds later, he jumped as though he had been touched with a live wire.  
  
"There it is again!" he yelled. "That scream!"  
  
Again, Ted Hobbes found himself alone. If anyone else had heard the cry of distress, they weren't admitting to it.  
  
"Someone's in trouble," Ted said. "We have to help." When no one offered to accompany him, he shook his head in disappointment and set off alone.  
  
For the next two hours, the partygoers watched uneasily as Ted scoured every inch of the bridge and surrounding riverbank, searching for the source of the sreams that only he could hear. He looked around pylons, behind every steel girder, and combed the entire bridge deck. At times, he appeared ready to give up, but then his head would snap back and he would call out "I hear you! I'm coming! Tell me where you are!" Frequently, Ted's best friends pleaded with him to rejoin them at the campsite. Occasionally, someone would try to approach him and take his arm. He reacted so wildly to such attempts that everyone thought it best to keep their distance, lest their obsessed friend lose his footing and fall.  
  
Many people left the party early. Near dawn, those who remained were forced to admit that Ted had come unglued and that some authoritative adult intervention was required. They decided to call upon a friendly, middle-aged police officer whom they affectionately referred to as "Copper."  
  
"Copper can get Ted down off the bridge," one of the kids nodded confidently. "And he'll probably be willing to keep it quiet." No one wanted to see Ted's fine reputation and prospects blemished becasue of a few too many graduation-night beers.  
  
Someone went off to rouse Copper out of bed. The others sat on the riverbank and watched Ted's frantic search. At one point, he lay down flat on his belly, hanging dangerously over the edge of the bridge deck, so that he could peer at the network of steel support beams that were beneath it. The pose looked so precarious that a few of the boys that were watching jumped to their feet.  
  
"Ted!" one shouted. "Get back!"  
  
"No, I can see her!" was his reply. Then to whoever was supposedly trapped in the beams beneath the bridge, he called out, "I see you now! Give me your hand! Just a little closer... Give me your..."  
  
And then Ted Hobbes leaned too far forward and lost his grip. He screamed horribly as he plunged into the balck waters below.  
  
Copper arrived five minutes later, which, of course, was much too late. There was nothing that he, or anyone else, could do. As had been pointed out earlier, it was a fast-moving river and Ted's body would already have been far downstream.  
  
Chris, the acne-plagued youth who had told teh story, was perhaps teh most distraught. He confided to Copper that he would never have imagined a fellow like Ted having such an irrational reaction to something like the old folktale about Brenda Jones.  
  
The policeman nodded in solemn agreement, but corrected the boy on one point.  
  
"You know, the story's actually true," he said. "Well, the ghost part is probably a lot of hogwash," he admitted with a shrug, "but the girl diving off the bridge-now, that really happened. It wa a long time ago. Before I was even on the force."  
  
Chris then asked the obvious question.  
  
"If Brenda Jones was real," he said, "who was the guy who jilted her?"  
  
Copper stopped still for a moment then. When he turned to face the boy beside him, his eyebrows were raised in an expression of vague surprise.  
  
"Well, now, that's an odd coincidence," he siad. and then Copper told Chris and the others the name of the fellow over whom Brenda Jones had killed herself. It was a name they all recognized, but not because of the man's business connections, or his good standing with the Rotary Club, or his seat on the town's council. They knew him, first and foremost, because he was the father of a friend.  
  
***  
  
His name was Dan Hobbes. And his son-drawn into a watery grave prepared by his own father's actions at a graduation party years earlier- was Ted. 


	11. The Scratching

Campfire Ghost Stories  
  
by Jo-Anne Christensen  
  
Stories Told by Firelight  
  
The Scratching  
  
One summer evening, a teenaged couple who had told their parents that they were going to a movie drove up to a place called Lookout Point. There were several other cars parked at the roadside turnout with the unforgettable view. The boy drove deliberately ast them all and turned down a hidden, overgrown little trail into a dark, remote place where the girl had never been.  
  
"Why can't we just park back there, with everyone else?" she asked nervously as they drove along and branches whipped agianst the windows of the car.  
  
"There's bound to be someone who knows us back there," the boy explained. "Do you want your parents to find out we didn't go t the movie?"  
  
The girl had to admit that she did not. So she put away her objections, freshened her lipstick, and told herself that even if something frightening was to happen, her boyfriend was there to keep her safe.  
  
half an hour later, however, he was determined to leave the car.  
  
"Where are you going?" the girl cried when the boy reached for the door handle.  
  
"I have to go to the bathroom," he complained as he pulled free of her clinging hands. "Let me go; I'll be just a minute."  
  
With a mocking grin, the boy stepped out of teh car. He slammed teh door behind him and vanished into the deep shadows within seconds.,  
  
He'll be just a minute, the girl thought. He'll be right back. But her boyfriend did not return immediately and it became more difficult for her to keep her fears at bay. She was unaccustomed to the night noises of the forest and imagined that each one represented a threat. Every rustling of the bushes was a wild animal, ready to pounce; every sigh of the breeze was the wheezing breath of the escaped, knife-wielding murderer who was said to stake out such desolate places in search of easy prey. Finally, she could not stand to be alone in the company of her imagination any longer.  
  
"I'll give you one more minute!" she called out the window to her boyfriend. "One more minute, and tehn I'm leaving!" She started teh car's engine for emphasis, and slid over to the driver's seat. There, she watched the seconds tick by on the dashboard's digital clock.  
  
The minute passed and the girl grew indignant. He knows that I'm nervous out here, she thought. How dare he deliberately frighten me! As she rolled the window up, she screamed out into the darkness that what she was about to do was her boyfriend's own fault. Then she put the car into gear.  
  
But the ground was soft and the tires spun hopelessly, managing to do nothing more than send up a spray of mud. The girl tried to drive forward and then in reverse. The car wouldn't budge either way. Finally, she gave up. She turned the motor off and collapsed tearfully against hte seat.  
  
"Alright, I'm sorry!" she sobbed through the small window openeing. "Now, please come back! You've scared me enough!" But there came no answer from the shadowy, tangled brush.  
  
There was no answer-but there was a sound. A scratching sound. The first scratch caught the young girl's attention. Teh second time she heard it, she was able to pinpoint its origin. It was coming from the roof of teh car. Something, or someoen, was on the roof.  
  
Cold terror jolted through the girl's body. In a flurry of frantic motion, she checked all of the door locks and rolled up the window that she had left just slightly open. She froze then and tried to stifle the sound of her own jagged breathing so that she could listen.  
  
Scratch. It was definitely coming from the roof of the car.  
  
The girl reasoned that the sound might be nothing more than a low branch of one of the many towering trees that surrounded the car, or perhaps a rodent or other small animal. None of this reasoning made her feel better, though. None of it could stop her from hyperventilating or slow her racing pulse. The problem was that, even if she could explain away the creepy scratching, she could not find a logical way to explain the continued absence of her boyfriend, who had now been gone for nire than half an hour.  
  
Unless, she thought...unless he's having some fun with me.  
  
The very thought infuriated her. Anger felt better than fear, so the girl nurturd it. Every time she heard the scratching noise, she imagined her boyfriend hidding behind a tree, using a long branch to scrape the roof of the car and frighten her out of her wits.  
  
As the girl's outrage grew, so did her resolve to not let teh boy get the better of her. She was still too anxious to leave the car, and not eager to make the long walk back to the public road, but there was no reason that she should not have a decent night's sleep. The girl crawled into the back seat, where she wrapped herself in an old blanket and eventually fell into an uneasy state of unconsciousness.  
  
The dreams that she had were terrible. Monsters with wild eyes stared at her through the car windows, and their faces were twisted into expressions of sneering laughter. The long, broken claws of some unseen creature scraped time and time again across the roof of the car, leaving a trail of dull, gray scars in the metallic paint. The girl even dreamed that she was again trying to drive the car abck to the road. In her dream, as in reality, she was unsuccessful; but in her dream it was because her boyfriend had punctured all four of the tires with a long, jagged knife.  
  
When she finally woke, the girl was tremendously relieved to see the pale light of dawn. Knowing that there was nothing to be afriad of by the light of day, she opened the car door and swung her legs out into the fresh morning air. She was just about to stand up when she saw something familiar only a short distance away from her feet.  
  
It was a navy-blue sneaker, one of her boyfriend's shoes. It lay on the ground, resting by the gnarly root of a tree. The girl could see that its white shoe lace was still neatly tied. The girl stood up. But before she could reach for the mysteriously abandoned shoe, or do anything else, she was startled by the sound of a vehicle that came crashing through the underbrush toward her.  
  
It was a police cruiser. The two officers had obviously not expected to encounter anothe rvehicle in their path, for they wore expressions of shock. They brought the cruiser to a sto ponly a few yards behind the car in which the young girl had just spent the night, and the one who had been driving leapt out.  
  
"Come here!" he shouted. "Walk to me, quickly. And whatever you do, don't look back!"  
  
"I know we shouldn't have parked here," explained the girl, "but the car is stuck and..."  
  
"You're not in trouble!" the officer assured her. "Just, please, come here and don't look back!"  
  
As the girl drew closer to the cruiser, she was better able to read the emotion that was written on the faces of the policemen. It wasn't annoyance at having to spend a night searchign for a couple of stupid teenaged kids. It was horror. Suddenly, the girl's knees were weak, and her stomach had formed a cold knot below her ribs.  
  
She found herself thinking about the lone shoe, and despite what the police officer had warned her, she turned around.  
  
It was then that the girl saw where her boyfriend had spent the night. He was bound, gagged and hanging upside-down from the branches of a tall tree. His body had been suspended directly above the roof of the car.  
  
He wa dead; that was obvious. It was also obvious that he had not died immediately. The girl culd see that her boyfriend had survived long enough to free one of his hands from the loops of thick rope. He had used that hand to try to signal for her help.  
  
Just then, a slight gust of wind caused the corpse to sway ever so slightly. The dead boy's fingernails, which were worn, and broken, and embedded with metallic auttomobile paint, dragged slowly across the roof of the car.  
  
The familiar scratching sound was the last thing the girl heard before she fainted. 


	12. The Weeping Woman

Campfire Ghost Stories  
  
by Jo-Anne Christensen  
  
Stories Told by Firelight  
  
The Weeping Woman  
  
Long ago, there was a woman who was abandoned by her husband and left to raise three small children on her own. The family was poor and times were hard; often they were hungry and cold. The woman was lonely and longed for companionship. When certain man showed interest in courting her, she did all she could to attract him.   
  
Unfortunatey, he was only interested in the woman. Since the three children were not his own, he did not particularly want them about, and he definitely balked at the expense of feeding so many mouths. The woman knew this and assumed it to be the problem when her suitor's attention began to wither.  
  
If I am left alone with the children again, we will all four starve, she reasoned. But I have been given a chance to save myself. With this horrible, ill-conceived logic, she gathered her children and set out for the river.  
  
It was a cold, rainy night and an icy wind howled around the huddled foursome. The children begged their mother to be allowed to return to the fireside, where it was warm and dry. She refused, saying that there was a bit of important business to attend to first.  
  
The business was murder. The woman took her small children to the highest cliff that rose above the river and threw them, one by one, into the churning, cold water. When she was finished, she wept, but quickly consoled herself with the knowledge that she would at least keep her man, and that she could always have more children.  
  
She soon discovered, however, that her lover's decreasing interest had less to do with the children than it did with her. As the weeks passed, he stayed away more often and complained more frequently about little things that the woman did. Then, one day, he simply did not come to see her. The woman had been abandoned by yet another man.  
  
It was then that the woman truly felt regret for her actions. Day and night, she wept for her dead children. Often, she walked by the riverside while she mourned, torturing herself with thoughts of how their poor little bodies had been swept away by the current. One dark evening, in the midst of a violent thunderstorm, she came to a conclusion.  
  
"I must find my babies, or I will never have peace!" she cried. Then, struggling against the wind and rain, the woman climbed to teh high cliff where she had killed her children. With one final, forlorn cry, she threw herself headlong into the raging river.  
  
It should have been the end of her. But it was not.  
  
Many people who lived near the river began to tell tales of a sorrowful figure, clad in a flowing, black dress, who skimmed smoothly over the rocky ground near their homes on stormy nights. It was terrible thing to hear her lament, they said. But there were others who claimed that there was something even more terrible abut her.  
  
"She steals children," they said solemnly. And they told horrifying stories of little ones who had been playing by the water's edge when the griecing black spirit appraoched them. Once coaxed into her spectral arms, those youngsters had been forever lost to their own loving parents. If their lifeless bodies ever were found, it was in the weed-choked water near the riverbank, where the wraith ahd discarded them.  
  
It had been more than a hundred years now. Still, this phantom has found no peace, for she has yet to find her murdered children. She may be doomed to search forever, which is why everyone must beware. For when her own children are not in sight, it seems that any child will do. The woman once comforted herself with the thought that she could always have more children, now it seems she means to have yours.  
  
So, don't let your little sons and daughters wander near the water, and warn them of the dangers that lurk in the wildest, stormy nights. Keep your children indoors, close and safe, and teach them to never appraoch a certain pitiful figure who cries woefully into the wind. If you fail to do this, they may someday vanish within the black embrace of the eternally weeping woman. 


	13. A Grave Mistake

Campfire Ghost Stories  
  
by Jo-Anne Christensen  
  
Stories Told by Firelight  
  
A Grave Mistake  
  
There is a nearby town where a secret sorority of young women exists. To become a member is a great honor and provides a girl with many benefits and advantages. But, of course, becomign a member is not easy. First, the candidate must be nominated by one of the senior members. Second, and more difficult, th proposed member must pass an initiation proving she is courageous beyond doubt.  
  
That initiatoin is always the same. The girl who wishes to join is told to present herself to the sorority leaders on the night of a full moon. She is given a hooded cloak to wear, a sturdy leather belt to cinch it, and a sheathed dagger that hangs form the belt. The girl is then driven to a field several miles from the town. She is directed to a dense copse of trees in the corner of that field. Everyone for miles around knows that field and those trees. They surround a small family burial ground that is known to be haunted. To pass the initiation, the girl must spend one hour in the cemetery, and then, before she leaves, plunge the dagger deeply into the soil of the oldest grave there.  
  
Many girls, upon learning the details of their proposed initiation, have walked away from the sorority and never looked back. Others nervously agreed to spend their hour among the tombstones and oftend end up with terrifying tales to tell. But once, there was a girl named Rebecca who accepted teh challenge with confidence so great that it bordered on arrogance. Later, everyone whised that she had been one of those who walked away.  
  
Rebecca wanted very much to belong to the prestigious sorority and, perhaps, she wanted to impress the members with her bravado.  
  
"Is that all I have to do?" she asked when the initiation was explained to her. "That's nothing! If I was superstitious, I might be worried, but anyone sensible knows that there's no such thing as a ghost!"  
  
The older girls, who had each spent their frightening hour in the graveyard, disagreed. They had seen and heard things there that could not be explained. They all remained silent, however, knowing tha ton the night of the next full moon, Rebecca would form a different opinion.  
  
When the night came, the sky was clear and the moon glowed like a polished silver dollar. The shadows of the trees stretched out like long dark fingers. As the sorority approached the cemetery, many of the girls were visibly anxious. Rebecca maintained her cool facade.  
  
"You must spend one full hour within the cemetery fense,' instructed the leader. "No matter what happens, it is imperative that you stay."  
  
"During that time," said another girl, "you should read the dates on each of the tombstones."  
  
"Find the oldest grave there," spoke a third, "and then, when the alarm clock rings to signal the end of the hour, you must plunge the dagger into that grave!"  
  
"Then you may leave," all of the girls spoke together, "if the angered spirits will let you."  
  
They set the clock then and watched as Rebecca climbed over the fence and walked away.  
  
Rebecca watched them until their dark shapes blended in with the trees at the edge of the field.  
  
"Piece of cake," she muttered to herself as she turned to face the graves.  
  
She had to admit that the little burial ground looked haunted. The aged tombstnoes leaned this way and that, and there were a few crude wooden markers that had been nearly worn away by the elements. Tall trees loomed over the graves like stern sentinels, and the fense that surrounded the entire scene was rotting and decrepit. Still, Rebecca reminded herself, looking haunted and being haunted were two entirely different things. She couldn't allow herself to give in to hysterical imaginings.  
  
But the moonlight tended to play tricks on one's eyes. Rebecca jumped on several occasions when a shadow in the periphery of her vision moved stealthily. Once, a white shape, which was surely a cloud of vapor escaping from the marshy ground, floated over the graves and amonst the trees. And the normally benign sounds of night-hooting owls, swooping bats and scurrying rodents-were somehow frightening when a peson couldn't pinpoint their exact origin. Through it all, though, Rebecca kept a calm head and read the time-ravaged inscriptions on the grave markers.  
  
By the end of the hour, she had found what she was looking for.  
  
"Silas Cooke," she said aloud. "It looks like you've been here the longest. Try not to be offended, but in a couple of minutes I will have to treat you in a most disrespectful manner."  
  
Perhaps it was a slight breeze, but Rebecca felt as though an icy hand touched her spine then. A mouse ran over her foot, making her flesh crawl, and some insect buzzed insolently into the loose hood of her dark robe. Frantically, she swept the hood off her head and swatted at her hair until her ears rang. No more than 10 seconds before the bug left, the alarm ran out, fracturing the silence and causing Rebecca to jump once more.  
  
"Let's get this over with," she whispered as she unsheathed the dagger and knelt down on Silas Cooke's grave. Then she called out the name of te sorority, raised her arms high above her head and plunged the dagger deep into the cold earth.  
  
All of the fear that Rebecca had been unwilling to acknowledge rose up to greet her at that moment. The very instant the blade was imbedded, she felt electric panic take hold of her senses. Suddenly, she needed to run, escape, leap over the fractured fence and flee the horrible little cemetery with its overgrown graves and moss-covered stones. But when she tried to do that, when she tried to jump up from teh grave that she had just desecrated, something clutched at her, pulling her back down.  
  
In Rebecca's terrified mind, it could only have been the furious wraith of Silas Cooke. Motivated by pure horror, she tried, once more, to flee. But before she even made it to her feet, she was seized from behind and yanked back down. Rebecca, the sensible girl who had assumed that spirits did not exist, suddenly knew without a doubt that a cold, skeletal hand had reached up through the soil to exact revenge for her act of defilement.  
  
***  
  
The other girls were walking back across the field when they heard the scream. It was ear-splitting and dreadful, enough to schock them into forgetting about their solemn ritual. They let loose screams of their own and ran back to the road and the safety of their vehicle. It was more than an hour before they mustered the courage to once again approach the cemetery and search for their new friend.  
  
When they found Rebecca, she was as dead as the corpses that had kept her company in the last hour of her life. Her eyes were wide and staring, and her face was twisted into an expression of absolute horror. Her lips remained parted in their final scream. She wa sprawled over the grave of Silas Cooke.  
  
That she had died of fright was obvious. Exactly why was a mystery. At least it was until the girls tried to move Rebecca's lifeless body from the grave.  
  
"Wait," said one of them. "Something's caught."  
  
And, indeed, something was. The flowing black fabric of the robe Rebecca had been wearing was firmly pinned to the ground... pinned by the dagger that the girl had used to violate Silas Cooke's grave... 


End file.
